I'm really very sorry.

August 30, 2016August 31, 2016

My apology for having fun at last night’s party

Dearest friend I write to you again and I fear that it is a letter of the type you are becoming quickly familiar with. I have committed a grievous act and you know as well as I do that this one is unredeemable. But I beg you, I urge you, to listen to me and my plea and try to see that underneath this callous exterior that fails you constantly, is a heart that means well and aches constantly from the weight of its own mistakes.

I am sorry for having fun at last nights party. I winced while typing that sentence, and I’m sure you winced while reading it. Disgust and sorrow and anger when all transcended leave only one emotion -repulsion. I am repulsed by my own actions, as you were by them too. I still live the moment again and again and wonder how it all happened. When you caught me dancing non ironically with genuine emotions by myself you dropped your drink. I saw you, the shattered glass glittering like stars under the makeshift disco ball in the living room. Your cool cocktail from the 1920s that you drink and tell everyone that it is from the 1920s was spilt. The custom cool old looking glass you carry with you and drink every beverage from was broken too. I knew then how seriously you were affected.

I am not trying to justify my actions. I had fun at the party. But I am trying to make you understand how. I know most people at all social occasions are uneducated ill informed blithering morons. You have told me this several times. That is why they seem happy, because they are not constantly crushed by the weight of the world and all its failings and rendered incapable of fun. Last night while you told me to spend a solemn evening for the people suffering in other countries, I could not help but notice that other people were not doing the same.

I know I was supposed to be above this scene and this enjoyment and excessive consumption of alcohol is just an unnecessary exercise in decadence and a sign of the slow decay of our times and the music isn’t good because you say they stopped making good music after 1953 but, like, it was Neha’s birthday! She was happy because it was her birthday. I’m sorry I couldn’t hold on to the fact that birthdays are a meaningless social construct, because everyone else seemed to think it was a big deal and they’d got presents and hats and streamers and all kinds of things.

I feel like I reached the point of no return when I felt myself nod my head to electronic dance music. I know music that millions of people enjoy is obviously terrible because it is mass manufactured by corporations to lead people like sheep down the path of consumerism, but the beat was pretty good. Thump. Thump. Thump. Who was the song by? Ok, I apologise. I think it was the alcohol. They must have mixed something in my drink, I think that’s what it was. I could not have voluntarily liked popular music that everyone likes. You and I are beings above this. We cannot be defined and we are not part of any mass being marketed to. We are above and beyond it all. You know, the song was by Above and Beyond! That’s the name of the band! I’m sorry. I’m letting my thoughts run away with me. This has become a justification. I’m sorry.

Lastly let me get back to when you found me. Un-choreographed dancing for the purpose of enjoyment is the most irredeemable act that one can commit. I know this and you know it and that’s why you have it tattooed on your forearm. Dances are supposed to be done in suits and with uniformity like the Rhumba or the Salsa or Ballroom dancing, like they did in the 20s where they drank the cocktails that you like, out of glasses like yours, to the music that was good then. But I discovered that it is possible to move to express yourself. I know this sounds like something that would be written on an Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirt or something stitched by children in a sweat shop but I truly just began to move with what they call ‘the beat’. I realise also that 1920s music in the 1920s was pop music. I suppose pop music ages to become a classic.

When you saw me, you ran down the street and out and away. Your wail of terror and disappointment shrinking slowly with distance. I felt shattered like your cool glass that I don’t know if you know is also made in China by children. In pieces on the floor, a fragment of what I used to be.

And that is why I wish to apologise to you. I am sorry. To extend an olive branch, I have organised a party this evening at my house where we can sit in the corner and sulk the entire night as one is meant to.

Thank you.

I miss you.

P.S. Dear reader if you know something that I should apologise for, please let me know here. I have a tremendous backlog, but I will get to it.

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